The Cleveland Guardians have won enough to compete for the early lead in the middling American League Central. However, they’ve struggled to win with Tanner Bibee on the mound.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals are amid their most successful stretch of the season — just as veteran Michael Wacha has cooled off from his strong start on the hill.

Bibee again tries for his first winning decision of 2026, while the visiting Guardians look to keep Wacha and the Royals from a fourth straight victory in Monday’s opener of a four-game set.

The Guardians won their season opener with Bibee (0-4, 4.08 ERA) getting the ball, but managed just one run of support while he’s been on the mound in losing his next six starts. Though the right-hander, who has posted double-digit win totals in each of his previous three MLB campaigns, has failed to complete more than six innings in any 2026 start, he’s yielded more than two earned runs only twice this year.

Bibee surrendered a run, four hits and three walks while striking out six over five innings of a 1-0 home loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday — the second consecutive start the Guardians failed to score for him.

“Pitchers are playing a very different sport, inside a sport,” Bibee said. “I feel like for pitchers, especially starting pitchers, you just got to worry about what you’re doing.

“You can’t affect anything else other than what you’re doing on the mound.”

Bibee is 4-0 with a 3.06 ERA in nine career starts against Kansas City, and the Guardians had won six straight outings of his in the series before falling 4-2 at home on April 6. He allowed five hits and a walk through 4 2/3 innings, but just one run.

Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino combined for three hits versus Bibee in that contest. Those two Royals, together, are 17-for-37 against him.

Cleveland won two of three versus Kansas City last month and just took two of three from the Athletics. However, the Royals are 8-3 since dropping eight straight and swept a three-game weekend series at Seattle.

“We don’t want to take that for granted. Just keep working,” Kansas City reliever Daniel Lynch IV told Royals.TV.

Wacha (2-2, 3.13 ERA) is 3-2 with a 2.32 ERA in nine career starts against the Guardians, and yielded a solo homer to Steven Kwan and two other hits over seven innings while opposing Bibee in that April matchup.

Wacha allowed three runs and 13 hits over 27 innings while going 2-0 in his first four 2026 starts. However, the right-hander, who turns 35 in July, has given up 10 runs and 15 hits over 10 1/3 in losing back-to-back outings.

He yielded eight hits, four walks and four runs, including a three-run homer, during Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Athletics.

“You have to keep going and make pitches in the zone, over the plate and get them out that way,” Wacha said. “It’s pitch after pitch that you got to execute and got to command.”

Kwan is 7-for-21 versus Wacha, and a career .310 hitter at Kansas City. His rookie teammate Chase DeLauter went 0-for-2 with a walk against Wacha in April but is 15-for-27 during an eight-game hitting streak.

Pasquantino is batting .188 in 2026, but he’s 5-for-14 in May.

–Field Level Media

The Houston Astros, desperate for production from a pitching staff ravaged by injuries, turned to an old postseason hero on Sunday, one whose struggles this season have come to represent the club’s as a whole.

Right-hander Bryan Abreu worked two scoreless innings of relief and notched his first win this season as the Astros claimed the rubber match of a three-game road series with the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 in 10 innings.

It marked just the second road series win this season for the Astros, who will host a three-game interleague series against the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday.

Abreu was on Houston’s World Series title team of 2022 and has played his entire major league career with the Astros since 2019.

“We can’t get to where we want to get to without Bryan Abreu,” Astros manager Joe Espada said after Abreu lowered his ERA to 10.32. “Hopefully, this is the trampoline that gets him going. I’m really happy for him, I’m really proud of him for those two innings.

“Momentum going into the Dodgers series at home, stuff like this matters,” Espada said. “These guys start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve still got a long season, but series like this get you going.”

Left-hander Steven Okert (0-0, 4.20 ERA) will serve as the opener for the Astros on Monday, while rookie right-hander Ryan Weiss (0-2, 6.65) is likely to work as the bulk pitcher. Okert tossed a scoreless inning of relief against the Red Sox on Sunday and allowed one hit with one strikeout.

It will mark the fifth career start for Okert and first since Aug. 5, 2025, against the Miami Marlins, when he allowed one run on one hit with two strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings.

Okert is 1-0 with one save and a 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 innings over 19 career relief appearances against the Dodgers. Should Weiss make an appearance, it will mark the first of his career against the Dodgers and his third against the National League. Weiss is 0-1 with an 11.37 ERA in two career interleague appearances — both against the Colorado Rockies.

Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2-2, 2.87) has the starting assignment for the Dodgers. He did not factor into the decision of a 5-4 home win over the Marlins on April 27 after allowing four runs (three earned) on five hits and four walks with four strikeouts in five innings.

Yamamoto is 0-1 with a 3.20 ERA in his last three starts with 18 strikeouts across 19 2/3 innings. The Dodgers scored one run in both of their losses with Yamamoto on the mound.

He will make his first career appearance against the Astros. He is 6-3 with a 2.82 ERA across 14 interleague starts since 2024.

The Dodgers snapped a four-game skid with a 4-1 road win in the finale of their three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. Justin Wrobleski twirled six shutout innings to pace the victory and deliver yet another strong pitching performance for the Dodgers, whose lineup scuffled during the skid but showed signs of improvement over the weekend.

Freddie Freeman delivered a two-out RBI single in the fifth, and he and Andy Pages produced runs while facing 0-2 counts. The Dodgers’ star-studded lineup is accustomed to more robust offensive displays, but given their recent struggles, all signs of progress are welcome.

“You’ve just got to bow your neck and find a way to win,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t matter how good or how bad it looks, we needed a win so we can have a happy flight.

“Yeah, the two-strike hits, the two-out hits are a sign of what we’ve done in the past.”

–Field Level Media

The New York Mets needed something to go their way in hopes of turning around a forgettable start to the season.

Fresh off a rare series win, the Mets will hope to keep the momentum going when they travel to Denver to take on the reeling Colorado Rockies on Monday to begin a three-game set.

New York began its six-game West Coast road trip by taking two of three from the Los Angeles Angels — the team’s first road series victory since a four-game set against the San Francisco Giants in early April.

After a 10-21 start, the club may be finding some momentum.

“That’s our goal, to start winning series,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That’s what it’s going to take for us to get to where we want to be. One series at a time, one game at a time.”

Desperately needing a shot in the arm at the plate, New York received a pair of two-run home runs from Mark Vientos in a 5-1 win on Sunday. The Mets’ 118 runs are second fewest in the majors — ahead of only the Giants’ 106.

“I think that’s the name of the game — putting yesterday in the past,” Vientos said. “We have to focus on the right now.”

Mendoza said the team plans on using an opener Monday before David Peterson (0-4, 6.53 ERA) takes the mound.

The struggling veteran left-hander has failed to complete four innings in each of his last three starts. On Wednesday, the 30-year-old Denver native surrendered seven runs on five hits in 3 2/3 frames in a 14-2 loss to the Washington Nationals.

Peterson is slated to face his hometown team for the fifth time, going 3-1 with a 1.99 ERA in the first four starts.

Colorado, meanwhile, has dropped five of its last six since sweeping the Mets from April 24-26. The Rockies’ pitching staff is coming off a disastrous weekend set against the Atlanta Braves, allowing 28 runs across the three-game sweep.

Needing a stopper, Colorado will turn to offseason addition Tomoyuki Sugano (3-1, 2.84) in the series opener, which was moved up three hours due to predicted inclement weather.

Last time out, Sugano threw 5 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out two in a 13-2 win over the host Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday.

“(Sugano) set the tone, kept them off-balanced, relied on his offspeed pitches,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said of Sugano’s last outing. “He was really good, efficient, just like he’s been all year.”

Sugano, 36, went 10-10 with a 4.64 ERA in 30 starts for the Baltimore Orioles last year as a rookie. The right-hander, who signed with Colorado in February, faced the Mets once last year, yielding three runs in six frames in a 7-3 win on July 10.

–Field Level Media